Silver Lake is a dry lake bed  in the Mojave Desert

Mojave Desert

The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...

 of San Bernardino County, California

San Bernardino County, California

San Bernardino County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 2,035,210, up from 1,709,434 as of the 2000 census...

, along Interstate 15

Interstate 15 in California

In the U.S. state of California, Interstate 15 is a major north–south route through the San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego Counties, and it has a length of in the state. It is a major thoroughfare for traffic between Southern California and Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as points beyond...

, 100 km (62.1 mi) northeast of Barstow

Barstow, California

Barstow is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 22,639 at the 2010 census, up from 21,119 at the 2000 census. Barstow is located north of San Bernardino....

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History

Silver Lake, along with the adjacent Soda Lake, is what remains of Lake Mojave

Lake Mojave

Lake Mojave is an ancient former lake fed by the Mojave River that, through the Holocene, occupied the Silver Lake and Soda Lake basins in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California. Its outlet ultimately emptied into the Colorado River north of Blythe....

, a large, perennial lake

Lake

A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...

 that existed through the Holocene

Holocene

The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...

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Geography

The Mojave River

Mojave River

The Mojave River is an intermittent river in the eastern San Bernardino Mountains and Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California. The river is notable as most of its flow is underground, while its surface channels remain dry most of the time, with the exception of the headwaters and several...

 terminates at Soda Lake, but the river has flowed into Silver Lake in historic times (as recently as the very wet winter of 2004-2005). A channel that has been modified by humans exists between the lakes. The lake occasionally has water, but is usually dry.

Silver Lake does not have salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 crusts, like Soda Lake does, because the groundwater

Groundwater

Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...

 is deeper. Salt crusts form from the repeated capillary rise

Capillary action

Capillary action, or capilarity, is the ability of a liquid to flow against gravity where liquid spontanously rise in a narrow space such as between the hair of a paint-brush, in a thin tube, or in porous material such as paper or in some non-porous material such as liquified carbon fiber, or in a...

 of salty groundwater, followed by evaporation

Evaporation

Evaporation is a type of vaporization of a liquid that occurs only on the surface of a liquid. The other type of vaporization is boiling, which, instead, occurs on the entire mass of the liquid....

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